‘Point Four’ to Screen for USAID Employees in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. (TADIAS) – Today with large sums of assistance flowing from the United States into Ethiopia, worth $6.226 billion in the last decade alone including $847 million in fiscal year 2011, the country is considered one of America’s closest strategic allies in Africa and one of the biggest recipients of U.S. aid on the continent.

According to Denver-based businessman and filmmaker Mel Tewahade, producer of the documentary Point Four (scheduled to be screened in Washington, D.C. this week to employees of USAID), the formal relationship between the United States and Ethiopia dates back more than a century, but did not start in earnest until President Truman’s “Point Four Program” in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

In a recent interview with TADIAS Mel said Point Four was eventually replaced by the current United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which now funds and oversees several civilian projects in Ethiopia covering economic development and humanitarian initiatives.

“It is very important for the current generation of USAID public servants to understand the genesis of the U.S. effort in developing world,” Mel said. “Point Four, a technical assistance program for developing countries that was announced by President Harry Truman during his inaugural speech on January 20th, 1949, was the predecessor to USAID.”